Chapter Text
When I stepped out into the bright sunlight of the school parking lot after the final bell, I had only two things on my mind: Ryan Reynolds and a ride home. What else is a guy supposed to think about when he’s seeing constant Deadpool ads?
I wish I looked like Ryan Reynolds, because he’s fucking Ryan Reynolds, but I guess my own looks aren't so bad. I have dark, tousled brown hair and brown eyes with hints of hazel in them. I wish they were more hazel, because brown is a very common and very boring color, but I have to be content with what I have.
In that parking lot, I had a mission to attend to. I needed to find someone who would give me a ride home. My dad’s car was in the shop, leaving him needing mine and leaving me reliant on my friends for rides. There was just one problem, and this was that nobody with a license had responded to my text asking for a lift.
Maybe that was my own doing, I sent the text during class and most of my friends give more of a shit about school than I do. Sitting in a building for six hours and having random bullshit I’m probably never going to use in life has just never been for me. Most of my friends didn’t fully share my sentiment, but it didn’t matter. Maybe they had just grown up faster than me, I didn’t know. Maybe I was destined to forever stay a young soul. I don't know which way's the best. I'll find out one of these days.
Anyway, I went on searching the parking lot, still thinking about Ryan Reynolds, and then wishing I had some company as the big names started making their way to the parking lot. High school is a lot different than elementary school in the regards that not everyone stays friends. As you grow up, there’s cliques and social expectations that really tear bonds apart and separate people into their squads.
My friends and I weren’t really affected by that, we were close as kids and stuck together even now, as high school juniors. We weren’t the bottom of the food chain, but we weren’t the top of it either, like star quarterback Stan Marsh, basketball legend Kyle Broflovski, and their girlfriends. We were just there, an odd combination of skills and personalities that had never ceased to exist.
Maybe that was why we weren’t the most liked by the big names of the school. Maybe they were jealous of us for sticking together when their childhood friend group had shattered. Or maybe they thought we were below them. That wouldn’t be a surprise to me, as I knew several classmates, including some of my friends, had gotten themselves into a fair share of trouble over the years. These jock types probably thought they were above us. Or maybe the power of their status had simply gone to their heads and made them forget that we were one and the same once.
I didn’t have the answer and wasn’t sure if I ever would. It was just the way things were.
Looking back at it, I probably should’ve waited inside the school for someone to respond or see me. I had six friends and there was only one exit to the student parking lot, one of them would’ve seen me eventually. Or I could’ve been patient and waited for one of them to text me back. It wasn’t like I would get a hard “no”, we were almost as close as brothers. When you grow up in a tight knit town like ours you get to know each other very well, after all.
But I didn’t wait. Instead, I started a man hunt in a school parking lot. Sometimes I just don't use my head. It drives some of my friends insane, particularly my two best friends, Tolkien Black and Craig Tucker. Those two can be incredibly serious at times, even if my absentmindedness annoying the fuck out of Craig is completely hypocritical with the dumb shit he does almost weekly, but it didn’t bother me too much. Besides, trying to find them in the parking lot was more fun than waiting, anyways.
It became much less fun, however, when I saw a group of seniors trailing me. I didn’t know any of them by name, but I recognized them as some guys from the basketball team. That spelled out danger, as South Park High’s basketball guys had a reputation for being brutal to those who were below them on the social hierarchy, which I was. And so, I sped up my pace, weaving between cars to try to avoid them.
I wasn’t all that convinced that they would jump me in the parking lot, where there were supposedly working security cameras. I also wasn’t convinced, though, that they wouldn’t jump me at all. It had never happened to me before, but I had seen my friend Tweek after four of the big names got ahold of him, and it wasn't pretty. Tweek was scared of his own shadow after that, and he had already been incredibly jumpy to begin with.
I learned quickly that my escape plan was not that effective, as I was quickly stopped by this basketball crew on the sidewalk in the back end of the parking lot. They were slowly crowding in, and I could feel my palms sweating. I was a larger guy for sixteen and I had my fair share of physical strength, but these guys scared me.
As they came even closer, I looked around, hoping to lay eyes on a big stick or something I could use to scare them off. One of my friends, Jason White, once held off four of these guys with a large stick and a dream, and I was sure I could pull that off. There was nothing, though, and I ended up resorting to standing there like a bump on a log while they surrounded me as they walked around me slowly, silently, and smiling.
"Hey Donovan," one said in an over-friendly voice. With a chill down my back, I recognized him as the guy I had gotten into a debate with during lunch about whose hair was better looking. It was a stupid argument, but I didn’t think it was all that deep. Shit, it was actually kind of fun at the time. With him and his buddies circling me, though, it became a lot less fun.
"We're gonna do you a favor, Donovan. We're gonna cut all that stupid fucking hair off."
Dude, seriously? It was a goddamn lunchroom debate, those are never serious! And don’t come near my hair!
He had on a letterman jacket. I can still see it. A green and white South Park Cows letterman jacket, which I wasn’t completely sure they gave out to basketball players, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think about this interaction now.
One of his friends laughed at his remark, then cussed me out in a low voice. I couldn't think of anything to say to that. Normally, I would curse back, but I couldn’t open my mouth. It was frozen shut with fear.
"Need a haircut, Donovan?" one of the basketball players, a medium-sized blonde guy, said as he pulled a knife out of his back pocket and flipped the blade open.
"No," I finally willed myself to say as I was backing away from that knife. How it was allowed on campus should’ve been a mystery to me, but after being a student of the South Park school system my whole life I was familiar with the fact that most adults working for it were not much more than careless idiots.
Of course, as I was backing away, I managed to back into one of these guys. They had me down on the ground with my arms and legs pinned in a second, with one of them sitting on my chest with his knees on my elbows, which hurts like hell. I could smell expensive cologne and mint vapor, and I wondered if I would suffocate before they did anything. With how scared this position had gotten me, part of me wished I would.
I fought to get loose, and almost did for a second, but they tightened up their hold on me immediately as the one on my chest slugged me a couple of times. And so I lay still, swearing at them between gasps.
A blade was held against my throat, and the one I had gotten into the debate earlier with smirked. "How'd you like that haircut to begin just below the chin?"
It occurred to me then that they could kill me, and I went absolutely wild. I started screaming for Jason, Tolkien, Craig, anyone. Someone put his hand over my mouth, and I bit it as hard as I could, tasting the blood running through my teeth. I heard a muttered curse and got slugged again, and they were stuffing a hat in my mouth. One of them kept saying, "Shut him up, for fuck’s sake, shut him up!"
Then there were shouts and the pounding of feet, and the basketball players jumped up and left me lying there, gasping for air. I lay there and wondered what in the world was happening as people were jumping over me and running by me, but I was too dazed to figure it out. Then someone had me under the armpits and was hauling me to my feet.
"Are you all right, Clyde?" Tolkien asked, shaking me slightly as he got me to my feet. I was wishing he would stop doing that. I was already dazed enough from the beating I had just endured, but I could tell it was Tolkien, partly because of the voice and partly because Tolkien could be a little rough without meaning to be sometimes.
"I'm okay. Stop shaking me, Tolkien, I'm okay," I managed to gasp out.
He stopped instantly. "I'm sorry."
Tolkien was six-foot-two, dark skinned, broad shouldered, and muscular. He had a dark afro and eyes that were like two pieces of sharp brown sea glass, piercing to the point of nearly glowing. There was something determined within them, like the rest of him.
He looked older than sixteen, tough, cool, and smart. He would be real handsome if his eyes weren't so cold. He could be overbearing and didn't take much time to understand anything that is not a plain fact, but he used his head.
I sat down again, rubbing my cheek where I'd been slugged the most. Tolkien jammed his fists in his pockets and watched me, those sharp eyes scanning me up and down. "They didn't hurt you too bad, did they?" he asked.
They did. I was aching like hell, my chest was sore, I was so nervous my hands were shaking, and I wanted to start bawling. You just don't say that to Tolkien, though
"I'm okay."
Another one of my friends, Kevin Stoley, came running over to us. By then I had figured that all the noise I had heard was my friends coming to rescue me.
Kevin dropped down beside me, examining my head. "You got cut up a little, huh, Clyde?"
"I did?"
He pulled a tissue out of his backpack, wet the end of it with his tongue, and pressed it gently against the side of my head. "You're bleeding' like a stuck pig."
"I am?"
"Look." He showed me the handkerchief, reddened as if by magic. "Did they pull a blade on you?"
"Need a haircut, Donovan?"
The blade must have slipped while my attacker was trying to shut me up.
"Yeah."
Kevin was fifteen, almost sixteen, and may have been the most handsome guy I had ever seen that wasn’t Ryan Reynolds. He wasn’t an odd superhuman type of handsome like Tolkien, he was more of a moviestar kind of handsome, the kind that people stop on the street to watch go by. He wasn’t as tall or as muscular as Tolkien, but he had a finely drawn, sensitive face that somehow managed to be reckless and thoughtful at the same time.
He had dark hair, long, silky, and straight, and dark brown eyes. Lively, dancing, recklessly laughing eyes that could be gentle and sympathetic one moment and blazing with anger the next.
Kevin was one of a kind. He could get drunk in parking lot car meets or by absorbing science fiction knowledge without ever getting near alcohol. Amongst the teenage population of South Park it was rare to find a kid who doesn't drink once in a while, but Kevin never touches a drop. He doesn't need to, he gets drunk on just plain living. And on science fiction. Especially on science fiction.
Unlike the rest of the guys, he didn’t really become a full fledged member of our group until middle school. Sure, he hung around us sometimes as kids, but one day in sixth grade he joined our lunch table and never left us since.
Kevin looked at me closely. I looked away quickly, because I was starting to tear up and didn’t want anyone to see me break. I had enough trouble shedding the “crybaby” title I had gotten in elementary school, and I didn’t want it to come back.
If Kevin saw the tears in my eyes he didn’t say anything. He just put his hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, Clyde. They won't hurt you anymore," he said.
"I know," I said, but the ground began to blur and I felt hot tears running down my cheeks. I brushed them away impatiently. "I'm just a little spooked, that's all."
I drew a quivering breath and quit crying. You just don't cry in front of Tolkien, not unless you're hurt like Tweek had been that day we found him beat up by the big names. Compared to Tweek, I wasn't hurt at all.
Kevin rubbed my hair. "You're a good kid, Clyde."
I had to grin at him. Kevin can make you grin no matter what, maybe because he's always grinning so much himself. "You're crazy, Kevin, out of your mind," I said
Tolkien looked as if we had two heads each. "You're both nuts."
Kevin merely cocked one eyebrow, a trick he'd picked up from our friend Jimmy. "It seems to run in this little group of ours."
Tolkien stared at him for a second, then cracked a grin. Kevin wasn’t intimidated by Tolkien like everyone else seemed to be, and he enjoyed teasing him. I'd sooner tease a full grown grizzly bear, but Tolkien seemed to like being teased by Kevin for some reason
Our friends had chased the basketball players to their cars across the lot and heaved rocks at them. After they were gone, they came running to Tolkien, Kevin, and I. They were a group of four great guys, tough as nails and looking the part. l had grown up with them, and they loved me, despite the fact that I wasn’t as tough as them. This love was probably because I was a constant in their lives since childhood, and what would they do without my irresistible self?
Jason White was sixteen, tall and slightly stocky, with dark, shoulder length hair that was nearly as luscious as a girl’s. He was quiet, clever, and had been close friends with our buddy Tweek since third grade.
Jason's specialty was cars. He became interested in racing when we were young, and managed to turn that childhood love into a teenage job and passion. He knew cars upside down, inside out, and backwards, and could drive anything on wheels. In fact, he worked part time at the local auto repair shop alongside Kevin, and nobody could deny the boom in customers the place had seen since they started two years ago. Whether that was because Jason was so good with cars or because of Kevin’s nerdy charm that attracted girls like nothing I had ever seen before, I did not know.
I only liked Jason because he was Kevin's best friend. He didn't seem to like me much, and seemed to think I was a pussy or something. Kevin always took up for me though, and tried his best to include me in whatever the two of them were up to. That seemed to annoy Jason to no end. It wasn't my fault, though. Kevin always asked me to come along, I didn't ask him. Kevin doesn't think I'm a pussy.
Jimmy Valmer was the wisecracker of the bunch. He was a little under six feet tall and possessed a fairly strong build in the upper half of his body, likely due to the fact that his legs didn’t quite work properly. They had always been weak, and his walking was assisted with crutches for as long as I had known him. He had tousled brown hair not unlike mine, hazel eyes, and a lopsided grin that was nearly impossible to wipe from his face.
Life was one big joke to Jimmy. He was famous for his sometimes great, sometimes horrible jokes, and he was always joking around with authority figures. He really couldn't help it. Everything he said was either so irresistibly funny or so groan worthy with no in between, and he just had to let adults in on it to brighten up their dull lives. At least, that's how he explained it to me.
Jimmy liked all forms of comedy, blondes, and school, for some unfathomable reason. He never cared to learn anything, but still went for the free entertainment it provided. I liked him because he kept us laughing at ourselves as well as at other things, and he reminded me of a late night show host, for all it was worth.
If there was one member of our group that was more mesmerizing than any other, it was Craig Tucker. His face was sharp and cold, with high cheekbones and a slightly pointed chin. His hair was pure jet black, the parts that stuck out from his ever present hat thick and wavy. His eyes were blue, blazing ice, cold with a hatred of the whole world.
Craig had been dealt a shitty hand at life, with money struggles and arguing parents that eventually divorced when we were fourteen, and it showed. He was tougher than the rest of us. Tougher, colder, meaner. He was as wild as the boys that were considered hoods in the high school food chain, like Kenny McCormick and his inner circle.
Craig liked to blow off steam by fighting, but a reason to fight, actually fight, was rare. There were just small bunches of friends who stuck together, and the warfare was between their different social classes. When a major fight was called it was usually born out of a deeper grudge, and the opponents just happened to bring their friends along. Because of that, Craig, even though he could get into a good fight sometimes, had no specific thing to hate. That was, except for maybe the big names, and you can't win against them no matter how hard you try. They had everything they could want and beating their asses wasn’t going to change that. Maybe that was why Craig was so bitter.
There was quite a reputation attached to Craig’s name. He had a bad record with the police. He had been arrested, gotten drunk, gotten high, gotten caught speeding, lied, cheated, stole, fought, he committed just about every petty crime and public disturbance in the book. Not everyone liked him, but he was still my best friend despite everything he had done. Shit, even if you didn’t like him, he was smart and you had to respect him.
Tweek Tweak was the last member of our group, and certainly not least. He was barely sixteen, and the smallest of our bunch, short and skinny. He had big, dark blue eyes in a pale face, and incredibly wild blonde hair. He always had a nervous, suspicious look in his eyes, and that beating he got from the big names didn't help matters one bit.
Tweek was basically our pet, everyone's baby. His parents were nice enough to the people around them, especially to us, but we all knew what they did to their son. We all knew he had spent his childhood being slipped drugs in the consistent flow of coffee they gave him. We all knew that they didn’t know how to help him when his mind got to be too much, and that they tended to do nothing but make things worse. Fuck, they were the cause of at least half of his issues. He probably would’ve run away a million times if it weren't for us. Without us, Tweek would have never known what true love and affection were.
“Did you catch them?” I asked my friends as they crowded around me, wiping my eyes so that they wouldn’t see the tears starting to form.
Jimmy shook his head "Nope. They got away this time, the d-d-dirty..."
He then went on cheerfully, calling the basketball players every foul name he could think of.
"The kid's okay?" I heard Craig ask over the sound of Jimmy’s cursing.
"I'm okay.”
Craig nodded and placed an arm around Tweek’s shoulders. The two had been dating since the fourth grade, and all of us were pretty sure Tweek was the only thing Craig loved.
With his arm around Tweek, Craig visibly relaxed. That was always a good sign that danger had passed, and I could feel the tension of the moment fading away. Finally, I had stopped trembling and I was getting color back into my face.
Jimmy cocked an eyebrow at me. "Nice bruise you got there, C-c-clyde."
I touched my cheek gingerly. "Really?"
Jimmy nodded. "Nice cut, too. Makes you look tough."
Jason looked over at me. “Hey, yeah, it does. Also what were you doing out here? I texted you to wait for me at the doors. I was going to drive you home.”
“You did?”
I checked my phone and sure enough, Jason did text me.
“Sorry man, I came out here to look for you guys and I didn’t think-”
"You don't ever think," Tolkien interrupted. “Clyde, you’re a good guy and all, but do you ever use your head for common sense? No, you don’t. You should've just waited for one of us, dude.”
I just stared at the ground, slightly embarrassed. Tolkien and I were as close as could be as kids. As we got older, though, we hardly got along. I knew he cared about me, and I cared about him, but I could tell I wore him out. He had become so serious and almost cold as we had gotten older, and sometimes it felt like we were all walking on eggshells around him.
Kevin was glaring at Tolkien. "Leave him alone, alright? It isn’t his fault we didn’t respond before he got bored waiting or whatever he was doing, and it isn’t his fault those jock fucks like to jump us.”
"When I want you to tell me what to do with this guy, I'll ask you," Tolkien said impatiently, but he backed off. He usually did what Kevin told him to, for some reason.
“How did you guys even find me back here?” I asked. We were in a pretty quiet area of the parking lot, one that people didn’t exactly occupy often. Few people parked in that area, it was basically a deadzone in the sea of cars.
“My parking spot is back here,” Craig said, rolling his eyes slightly. “Anyway, Tweek and I were going to go out to the movie theater tomorrow evening. Anyone want to come with and hunt for some action?”
Jason shook his head. "Kevin and I are going out to Denver with Annie and Red," he said, while shooting me a look as if daring me to ask to come with. I wasn't going to ask, so it was really unnecessary of him to do so. I'd never tell Kevin, because he really likes Jason and because he’s my biggest support system in the group these days, but sometimes I can't stand Jason White. I mean it, sometimes I hate him.
"I'm working tomorrow night," Tolkien said with a sigh. Those days, he was working part time at a medical lab a little outside of town, and it took up a decent chunk of his free time. I didn’t know why he took up the job when he was the richest kid in South Park, but he seemed to enjoy it, so who was I to judge?
Craig looked at the rest of us. "How about you guys? Jimmy? Clyde? You guys want to come?"
“Yeah, I’ll come,” I said. Third wheeling Craig and Tweek’s date nights were kind of fun. I kind of liked teasing the two when they were being all lovey-dovey with each other.
"I was p-p-planning on helping my mom shop for my d-d-dad’s birthday tomorrow night," Jimmy said. "I’ll come f-f-find you guys after if I can though."
So it was just me tagging along with Craig and Tweek while they made out or something in a movie theater, it looked like. Just me, the single man of the group, third wheeling with my gay friends while the straight friends took their girls to Denver and the other single guys ran off to their other obligations.
I thought of Annie and Red, Jason and Kevin’s girls that they were ditching movie night for. They were the only kind of girls that cared for our type. Artsy, rebellious girls who worshipped grunge fashion and were slightly foul mouthed. I liked Kevin's girlfriend though. Red was a cool chick, sarcastic but kind. Her hair was naturally red and she had these really soft doe-like brown eyes. She wasn’t the most loved in the social hierarchy, but she was a nice girl.
Still, I wondered what other girls were like. The big name girls, the girls who were bright eyed, were cheerleaders for their boyfriends’ games, and who acted as if they'd like to spit on us if given a chance. Some seemed almost afraid of us, and part of me couldn’t blame them. After all, I knew Craig Tucker.
Most of them looked at us like we were garbage, though.They gave us the same attitude that their boyfriends did when they came by in their little flocks and did whatever they could to make our lives more difficult.
I wondered about those girls, though. Did they cry when their boys got caught up in trouble, like Annie did when Jason got hauled in on one too many speeding tickets, or did they run out on them like Kenny McCormick’s ex girlfriend did to him when he got arrested freshman year. Maybe their boys didn’t get into the type of trouble we did, though.
I was still thinking about those types of girls when I was at Kevin’s that night. Tolkien and I were spending the night after the three of us had a study session for our science test the next day. Kevin was the best at science in our group, aside from Craig, and Craig was not someone to ask for tutoring.
Maybe it was because I had science on the brain, but a memory of my own troubles with big name girls came up. It was kind of funny, because in elementary school and the first half of middle school, I had no problems with girls. That changed very quickly, though, when friendship became a more streamlined thing once we all became teenagers.
Anyways, my big name girl incident happened in freshman year biology. We had to dissect sheep hearts, and the razor wouldn't cut. So, I got out my multitool and used the blade on that thing. The minute I flicked it out, this girl right beside me gasped, and said, "They were right. You are a hood."
There were a handful of big names in that class, and most of them thought it was pretty funny. I didn't, though. If anything, I just felt bad that I didn’t think about what I was doing before I did it. And what made me a hood, anyways? My friendship with Craig? Simply not being a big name? It made no sense to me.
I had to admit, though, we deserved a lot of our trouble. Craig deserved everything he got for the things he did, to tell the truth. And it was basically an open secret that Jimmy had a thing for dabbling in drugs. No one really talked about it, but we all knew it was happening. I could understand why Kevin and Jason got themselves into trouble with others, though. Both of them have too much energy with no way to blow it off.
“Hey Clyde, are you going to spend the night too?” Kevin asked, pulling me from my thoughts and back into reality.
“Yeah, sure,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t really have anywhere better to spend the night. My dad was spending the night with his new girlfriend, and I didn’t have anyone else to go home to. My mom died in a freak accident involving a toilet when I was ten and my sister lived out of state with her own little family. Sure, I had gotten used to my home life just consisting of me and my dad, but I didn’t like to be around any of the women he brought home. Maybe there was a part of me that was scared of my mom being replaced.
And anyways, why not stay over? It was clear that Tolkien was, he was knocked out on tone of Kevin’s bean bag chairs.
With a sigh, I looked over at him. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep, and it made me a bit sad in a way. He was so different as a kid, and I missed the old him. Maybe it was our fault. He had the potential to be a big name if it weren’t for us. He had money, he was one of the top students in our class, and he was an athlete. He could have more if he let us go and merged with them. Maybe that was why he became a bitter teen.
I rubbed my cheek where it had turned purple. I had looked in the mirror earlier, and it did make me look tough. So did the cut, but there was a bandaid over it now.
I remembered how awful Tweek had looked when he got beaten up. I had just as much right to walk this town as the big names did, and Tweek had never hurt them. We lived there too, after all. Why did they hate us so much? We left them alone, for the most part. They lived in their little social circles, and us in ours with very little overlap between the two. It just didn’t make sense to me.
As I thought about it, I kept thinking back to the parking lot after school. I kept remembering the faces of the basketball players as they surrounded me, that green letterman jacket, and that cold voice of the main attacker.
"Need a haircut, Donvan?"
I shivered at the thought of his voice.
"You cold, Clyde?" Kevin asked me quietly. He was perched on the end of his bed, glancing over at me. I was seated in his desk chair, glancing over at him.
"A little," I lied.
Kevin beckoned me over to sit with him. I obliged, and he threw an arm around my shoulders when I was seated. "Listen, Clyde, when Tolkien lectures you like he did earlier, he doesn’t mean to be mean. He just worries about us. He’s always been the mom friend, even when we were kids, y’know? I know I wasn’t really around in elementary school, but everyone outside of this group could see it too. Don't take him seriously, alright Clyde? Don't let him upset you. He loves you a lot, y’know that?" he said to me quietly.
"Sure," I said, trying for Kevin's sake to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“I mean it.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Kevin sighed, seeming to get that convincing me that Tolkien’s bitterness wasn’t so deep was a lost cause. “Alright, just shut up and I’ll tell you something. You can’t tell anyone else though.”
"Okay, I won’t," I said, sneaking a quick glance at Tolkien to make sure he was still out cold, which he was.
"I think I'm going to marry Red. After we get out of school and I get a better job and all that. I might wait until we’re all settled after school and shit, though. Don’t want to break up the boys over getting married young or anything."
"How romantic. Wait until my life is set so you can keep Tolkien off my back."
"Don't be like that, dude. I told you he doesn't mean half of what he says..." Kevin trailed off, but it seemed he had more to say.
"Are you in love with Red? What's it like?" I interrupted, not wanting to be lectured by him about Tolkien again.
Kevin sighed happily. "It's really nice. Like, really unbelievably nice."
I turned my head to look at him as he rambled on some more about how being in love with Red felt. We had shut off the lights shortly after Tolkien fell asleep, and the moonlight trickling in from Kevin’s open curtains made him look like some Greek god came to earth. I wondered how he could stand being so handsome.
I was only listening to Kevin with half a mind, as I had a lot that I was thinking about as he spoke. I didn't quite get what he meant about Tolkien. Tolkien seemed to think I was nothing but a nuisance most days. What did he mean Tolkien loved me?
I thought of those sharp brown eyes. Kevin had to be wrong, I was sure of it. I was sure that Tolkien didn’t love anyone or anything, except maybe Kevin. It was hard to even think of him as being human.
I don't care , I lied to myself, I don't care about him either. Kevin's enough, and I'll have him until goes and marries Red. I don't care about Tolkien.
Those were the lies I was actually telling myself, and I knew it. I lied to myself all the time, but I never believed myself when I did.